Friday, 6 February 2009

Firefox 1982

Firefox is a 1982 action film produced and directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood. It was based on a 1977 novel with the same name by Craig Thomas.The film details a joint Anglo-American plot to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31, NATO code name "Firefox") which is capable of Mach 6, is invisible to radar, and carries weapons controlled by thought. Eastwood stars as Maj. Mitchell Gant, a Vietnam veteran who infiltrates the Soviet Union, aided by his ability to speak Russian (due to his Russian mother) and a network of dissidents and sympathizers. His goal is to fly the Firefox back to the United States for analysis.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Below: How Firefox would have opened when seen in UK cinemas with its original AA certificateTo view the original scope trailer, with Warner communications opening logo, click below:

Firefox 1982 UK Card advertisement for ABC cinemas
Firefox 1982 UK Original Cinema giveaway (ABC cinemas) b/w photo card
Firefox 1982 UK original press book
Firefox 1982 UK original press sheet full colour art to front
Firefox 1982 Original full US press kit, production notes, artwork folder and 8 b/w press stills
I was not even aware of these, kindly sent in by our good friend Mal Baker.
Firefox 1982 UK original book of matches

Some other great material from around the world
Here's the very nice Firefox U.S. Insert poster
Below: The Firefox French poster
Below: The US Advance 1 sheet poster for Firefox
Below: Clint captured wearing a rather nice Firefox T-shirt
Below: Some Superb behind the scenes shots from October 1981

Below: Clint watches on during filming using the miniature Firefox model

Below: Firefox U.S. Laserdisc Full Screen Version with Stereo sound

Below: A Rare Indian Firefox poster
I recently discovered this advance folder, while the front carried the familiar tag line of 'The most devastating killing machine ever built' inside proved to be something of a surprise with a tag line which reads:

1982...
We are
behind...
we have
no choice...

Followed by the more familiar line:
His Job - Steal it!
This is the first time that I have seen this used, so I'm guessing it's quite a rare object, unless you know different of course, if so, drop me a line.
Below: Front of folder
Below: Inside of folder

FIREFOX Original New York Times Review

Firefox (1982)June 18, 1982STEALING 'FIREFOX'By VINCENT CANBYPublished: June 18, 1982THE Russians have developed a superweapon code-named ''Firefox.'' It's a fighter plane that flies six times the speed of sound and whose armament can be activated by the brain waves of the pilot, though the pilot must think in Russian. It isn't fair if he thinks in English and then transposes those thoughts into Russian. The possible effects of this estimated two- to three-second advantage over conventional weaponry boggles the minds of British and American intelligence officials. Says one grimly, ''It will change the shape of the world.''The only thing to do, they agree, is to steal the plane from its hangar deep inside the Soviet Union and fly it out to the ''free world,'' a job for which there is just one man. James Bond? Superman? Of course not.

It's Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood), self-described as ''the best there is,'' a former Army pilot living in seclusion in Alaska and still trying to cope with a hideous Vietnam flashback that appears every time he hears a helicopter. If Gant lived in Manhattan, he'd be a basket case.

The Allied intelligence people aren't aware of his problem. Luckily it's a tiny one and scarcely figures in the rest of the film. His superiors know only that Gant is a superpilot and that because his mother was Russian, he speaks the language, as they say, like a native.

This is not only the beginning of ''Firefox,'' which opens today at the National and other theaters, it's also pretty much the middle and the end of it, though the film does move around a lot, from Alaska to the continental United States and, eventually, to the Soviet Union and a small patch of polar icecap.

In addition to starring in ''Firefox,'' Mr. Eastwood also produced and directed it. He should have been tougher on everybody, especially on Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman, who adapted the screenplay from a novel by Craig Thomas. ''Firefox'' is only slightly more suspenseful than it is plausible. It's a James Bond movie without girls, a Superman movie without a sense of humor.

Mr. Eastwood has directed himself a number of times with far more entertaining results, most notably in ''The Gauntlet.'' In ''Firefox,'' he treats himself with such solemnity he seems to forget that action must be demonstrated, not just talked about.

Mitchell Gant carries off his mission with so little interference that you can't believe someone hasn't already stolen the Kremlin from Moscow, brick by brick, and reassembled it in southern California as an amusement park. Mr. Eastwood takes a dim if reassuring view of the Russians and the cold war. The superweapon, we learn, is the work of Soviet-Jewish superscientists, who play a key part in the Allied intelligence plan.

''What is it with you Jews?'' Mitchell Gant asks one of the men who aids him inside the Soviet Union. ''Don't you ever get tired of fighting city hall?''

''Firefox'' expresses a most cavalier attitude toward the lives of its supporting characters. Nearly everyone who assits in the planenapping is promptly bumped off. They die in such numbers, and with so little emotion, that even the screenplay seems to become selfconscious about it.

''Why are you prepared to die?'' Mitchell Gant asks one fellow. The answer: ''It's a small thing compared to my resentment of the K.G.B.''

That little matter out of the way, ''Firefox'' lurches toward its climactic sequence, the flight out of the Soviet Union with the Communist Party's First Secretary directing the pursuit from the ground. At a crucial point, Mitchell Gant must activate the plane's weapons by his brain waves. It's not easy.

''Firefox,'' which has been rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), contains some not very convincing violence and some vulgar language.

Plane-Napper

FIREFOX, produced and directed by Clint East- wood; screenplay by Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman, based on the novel by Craig Thomas; director of photography, Bruce Surtees; edited by Ferris Webster and Ron Spang; music by Maurice Jarre; released by Warner Bros. At the National, Broadway and 44th Street; Loews 83d Quad, at Broadway; Gemini, 64th Street and Second Avenue; 86th Street, at Lexington Avenue; 34th Street Showplace, near Second Ave- nue, and other theaters. Running time: 136 minutes. This film is rated PG.

Mitchell Gant . . . . . Clint Eastwood

Kenneth Aubrey . . . . . Freddie Jones

Buckholz . . . . . David Huffman

Pavel Upenskoy . . . . . Warren Clarke

Semelovsky . . . . . Ronald Lacey

Colonel Kontarsky . . . . . Kenneth Colley

General Vladimirov . . . . . Klaus Lowitsch

Pyotr Baranovich . . . . . Nigel Hawthorne

First Secretary . . . . . Stefan Schnabel

General Brwon . . . . . Thomas Hill

Major Lanyev . . . . . Clive Merrison

Lieutenant Colonel Voskov . . . . . Kai Wulff

Natalia . . . . . Dimitra Arliss

Walters . . . . . Austin Willis

Captain Seerbacker . . . . . Michael Currie

Below: A rare Japanese cinema ticket for Firefox

Below: An unusual
full page Ad for Firefox with a lot more tagline text

Below: A full page advance advertisement from WHV for the Firefox Video Cassette rental

Below: Here the full Clint Eastwood Director Film 82 Special

My sincere thanks go to Dave Turner for providing the
original VHS source tapes and to our friends David Vernall-Downes and Jonathan
Downes.